Thinking Over
by Muzzy-Olorea
Summary: [ME] Set after [1.01 Pilot]. Matt has some explaining to do but can he get Emily to listen?


**Thinking Over**

**ME Set after S1 'Pilot'. Matt has some explaining to do but can he get Emily to listen?**

**_Disclaimer: My Muse, my imagination and my dreams are all mine (but can be rented for a high fee). I'm sure if I owned the cast and characters we would have an enormous amount of fun (but I don't. I'm just borrowing them). _**

**A/N:- Another fic from me!**

**'Thinking Over' – Dana Glover**

Emily waved off the reporters and at her nod officers moved in to draw the camera crews away. As she headed over to the art gallery to collect her stuff, she knew Matt was following her but she didn't turn around or wait for him, instead she focused on bracing herself for Cheryl's reprimand.

"What were you thinking!"

Emily sighed and then shrugged. "I profiled him, I talked to him, I knew he wasn't dangerous so I decided to take a risk."

"A very big risk." Cheryl said, crossing her arms. "What was number twenty-five in the guidelines that you wrote? Never offer to give the hostage taker your life in exchange for others! I don't want to call you a hypocrite but for someone who made up the FBI guidelines, you sure have broken a lot of them in the past twenty-four hours."

Emily didn't say anything but touched her forehead with the back of her hand. She could feel a headache coming on and all she wanted right now was a nice hot bubble bath and a tub of Ben & Jerry's.

Her boss seemed to sense that and took pity on her. "Apart from that – good job today." She said with a half smile before leaving Emily alone.

Taking a deep breath she packed up her laptop, fastened her cell phone and gun to her belt and grabbed her jacket.

She was just searching her pockets for the key to the Bureau car when Matt came up to her dangling a set of car keys in front of her. "You're lucky to be alive." He said quietly.

"Oh don't start." She said exasperatedly, looking away. All around them people were running back and forth: family of hostages, ambulances, fire trucks, police, camera crews ……

"I think we need to talk."

She shook her head and looked at him tiredly. "It's too late for that Matt. This thing with us has got to end. We've been kidding ourselves for the past couple of months that our sex life isn't affecting our job but it's become glaringly clear that it is and it just won't do, not with hundreds of people's lives at risk."

Matt ran his eyes over her face. She seemed serious and he felt guilt take him over. "Look, I know I've said somethings that were out of line in the past couple of days but-"

Emily was shaking her head before he even had a chance to finish. "It doesn't matter. That's the thing about having 'just sex' – you don't need to worry about anyone's feelings whilst it's going on and you certainly don't have to worry about anyone getting hurt when it ends." She said, snatching the car keys from him and unlocking the car, she started putting her things in.

"Emily, come on." Matt said, reaching for her arm.

She spun to face him. "No Matt. I've just been held hostage, I've come this close to being blown up, I've had the councillor's son cry all over me, I'm tired, I have a headache and I just want to forget about all of this." She pleaded desperately.

Matt examined her for a moment and she looked so drained he almost didn't want to argue with her. "Let me drive you back to my place."

"Matt-"

"You can have a hot bath and I'll cook you dinner and we'll just relax."

"Matt-"

"Emily, I'm asking you just as a friend and co-worker."

That caught her attention and she looked at him, trying to see if she could trust him. They had never had dinner together before and she had never been to his apartment – they had always gone to hers which was nearer the FBI building or to a hotel room, and she wondered whether it was worth the risk.

"Come on, you're tired and I'm a great cook." Matt said, nudging her gently.

She nodded in spite of herself. "Okay." She said with a begrudging smile as she climbed into the passenger seat.

They didn't speak during the drive. Matt had the radio turned on low and was humming along to his favourite country songs whilst she was staring out of the window trying to memorise the different areas of LA they were driving through. She was feeling very drowsy when he pulled up in an area of LA Emily had never even set foot in before. It was the expensive part, bordering on where all the celebrities had their lush houses and she was surprised to say the least. She never thought Matt was the kind of guy to spend the money living in a place like this. Matt helped her out and led her into the lobby.

"Let me just check my post." He said, walking over to the pigeonholes.

She nodded whilst she looked around. The place was decorated in warm peach colours with gold enamelling on the walls and marble floors so clean it looked like no one had ever walked on them. This place was grander than half of the bank buildings in LA.

"Good evening Mr Flannery."

Emily turned to see a middle-aged man dressed in a navy blue suit address Matt and she figured him for the doorman.

"Hey there Drew." Matt said jovially, moving towards her. "Any parcels for me?"

"Not today Sir." Drew said, looking questioning at Emily.

"Emily, this is Drew. Drew, this is Emily my partner." Matt introduced.

Emily smiled warmly at the man but felt awkward when he bowed and kissed her hand.

"Two FBI Agents, I had better keep on your good side." He winked.

Matt led her over to the elevators and they walked into one in silence and she watched as he pressed the button for the top floor. Funny how awkward elevator rides suddenly became when there was no case to talk about or he wasn't pinning her to the walls, planting kisses all over the face like he usually did when they rode the elevator up to her apartment.

"Okay, well, here we are." Matt said, unlocking and opening his front door for Emily to walk through.

It took all of her inner strength to stop her from letting out an audible gasp. It was quite possibly the largest apartment she had ever seen with a living space as big as her kitchen, dining area and lounge put together, with a balcony and a beautiful view over the city. Then there was the spacious dining area and a kitchen with all the cooking utensils any professional cook could need. Then off to the right there was a hallway which led to three, possibly four, bedrooms. The wood floors, the elegant light fixtures, the leather sofas, the widescreen TV, the music system ……… she didn't know where to start. She felt Matt tug her coat out of her grasp. He had never said anything about her incredibly small, messy, meagre apartment when he was round there and had never indicated that he lived in such a palace.

"It was my uncle's place." He announced as way of explanation, as he came back from hanging her jacket up. "And when he died he left it to his only nephew."

"Wow." Emily said with a small laugh. "You never said you lived in a place like this."

"What you think I go around LA advertising my apartment to get girls to sleep with me?"

"I think it would probably work." Emily said running her fingers over the stylish mahogany book shelf. Austen, Dickens, Tolkien, various FBI handbooks – this guy had good taste……….. and most probably a cleaner – this place was spotless.

"My bedroom's down the hall at the end."

Emily jumped. She hadn't realised he was standing so close behind her and it was slightly unnerving considering what he had just said. She turned to look at him and he gave her a small smile.

"You can use the bathroom in there and help yourself to any of my clothes from the drawers on the left." He continued, obviously having enjoyed her look of fright at the mention of his bedroom. "I'll get started on dinner."

"Thanks." She said, taking herself down the corridor. As she walked through his bedroom, she tried not to analyse it too closely. From the brief look she got, it seemed like any ordinary bedroom of a single man apart from the fact his maid had obviously tidied up in there earlier today. She walked into the en-suite bathroom and ran the bath, which resembled a small swimming pool, pouring in a generous amount of bubble bath. She shed her clothes and climbed in. Heaven.

Feeling the warmth soak into her body, she couldn't help but start to involuntarily think about Matt and the things he'd said to her over the past couple of days………. He hated change, his life couldn't get much worse, the fact that he didn't call her last night when he should have been grovelling her forgiveness, the fact he made it painfully clear that the reason he backed her up was because he thought she was right not because they were sleeping together …… Of course that was the way it should be but it didn't explain why it hurt so much to hear him say it out loud. 'Just sex', it was just sex. She knew what it was about right from the start so why did his obvious detachment bother her so much? She groaned and let herself slide beneath the bubbles.

Matt stood over the frying pan watching the chicken sizzle and spit in the oil and tried not to think about his partner bathing in his apartment right now but it was no use: Emily was all he had thought about for the past three months and right now was no different. He didn't know whether the way he reacted to Frank's question today at the shooting range told him anything new that he didn't already know regarding how he felt about her. God she made him so mad sometimes … the way she managed to get under his collar, her determination to get her way and pulling stunts like she had done today that made him worry like crazy.

Emily carefully stepped out of the bath and wrapping herself in a large fluffy table she headed out of the bathroom into his room. Going through his clothes, she picked out a long sleeved shirt which would completely dwarf her and a pair of his boxer shorts. Then she sat down on his bed to dry her hair when a book on his bedside table caught her eye. She picked it up to read the synopsis on the back when something he was using as a bookmark fell out: it was something she recognised – a photo of the two of them at last year's Christmas party. They had been slightly drunk and in the photo she was pretending to lean in to kiss him whilst he was pretending to move away from her. She giggled softly as she carefully put the book back and wondered at him still having the photo as she got dressed.

When he heard the door open, he wiped his hands on a dishcloth and went out to meet her but nothing prepared him for the fact that she could look so breathtakingly beautiful wearing his old clothes with the locks of her wet hair dangling on her shoulders …….

He was looking at her with an indescribable look on his face which made her blush slightly. She walked up to him and he motioned her into the dining room. "Matt …" She started. The room was dimly lit by two candles on the table set for two and it certainly crossed the line from two co-workers having dinner into something more.

He handed her a glass of red wine and led her to her seat. "What? I do this for all my friends." He shrugged.

"Even your male friends?"

"Frank especially enjoys it." He winked, taking his seat opposite her.

"Matt …."

He cut her off once again. "Don't. Please just let me do this."

She held his gaze across the table for what felt like eternity before nodding slightly and sipping her wine. He brought the food over and although she was so hungry she would probably have eaten a plate of stewed cabbage, she had to admit that he really was a great cook.

They didn't talk about work over dinner, instead they chatted about books and movies and music, having a long debate about what the world's all time greatest band was. Emily was surprised to find they had such a lot in common and that Matt had such a great sense of humour that rarely got a chance to shine at work.

Matt looked at her lean back in her chair and laugh and he smiled warmly. She was amazing and had such a fun personality that he never got to see at work. He wanted to take her out to the balcony and kiss her, convince her that they could make this work but he knew that she would never believe he wanted more than just sex, not with the way he'd acted so uncaring over the past couple of days. He leant forward and blew out the candles.

"Come on, let's go and sit on the sofa." He said, motioning towards the living room. Emily let him guide her over, his hand on her back and she knew that he was probably going to make a move and as tempting as it may be she was going to remind him of the conditions under which she accepted this invite back to his apartment.

Matt sat down next to her, as close as he dared, resting his arm around the back of the sofa. He could smell his shampoo on her and it took all his willpower to stop himself from moving closer.

This was awkward. He was staring at her and she didn't dare meet his eye.

"Em, there are some things I need to explain." He said, taking her hand in his.

She looked at him in surprise. He never called her 'Em' mainly because it was bordering on affection and 'he didn't do affectionate' – his words not hers. And he was holding his hand – what was that all about?

"I said that I don't like change and it's true, I usually don't. But when we started sleeping together that was the kind of change I liked. When I said that my life couldn't get any worse, I didn't mean that things with you were bad, they're not, it was just something I needed to say to get the hostage taker to believe me so if any of that hurt you, you have to realise that I didn't mean for it to hurt you, it's just I tend to think without speaking a lot of the time. I'm really sorry for making our relationship go public in front of two hundred people, you have every right to be mad at me for that. When I said it, I wasn't thinking about the consequences or how it would affect you, and the reason I didn't answer your calls last night was because I thought you were mad at me."

Emily hid a smile. He was undeniably cute when he rambled. She shook her head and rested her hand on top of his hand lightly. "Those things don't matter anymore Matt. Us sleeping together was a stupid thing to do from the beginning so it was probably a good thing that we were forced to confront it and put an end to it."

"You heard what Cheryl said: they can't split us up, what else can they do …."

"It's not that. It's not just that." Emily corrected. Then she sighed. "When we agreed that this was just going to be about sex, I wasn't thinking properly. It's easy for guys to have 'just sex' but with girls, there's always going to be emotions and feelings and I just can't do this …."

"I lost at paintball for you." Matt blurted out.

Emily raised her eyebrows and looked at him questioningly.

"One of Frank's guys said something and I kind of lost it so Frank said we should settle it with paint rather than fists….."

"And you lost?" Emily said, looking at him amused. God he was so sweet.

"That's not the point." Matt said quickly. He paused. "I want to tell you something but I don't want you to freak out."

Emily looked at him curiously, wondering what he was going to say. He was really nervous, his eyes flicking all over her face. "Okay." She said steadily.

Matt looked at her unsurely as if he was conducting a risk assessment of what he was about to say, preparing himself to do some damage control. "I know we said that 'us' was going to be just sex but I think over the past few months instead of just sleeping with you, I think I've been falling for you."

Emily sat there, stunned. Did he just say what she thought he just said! She was actually speechless. All this time she had been worrying about how involved she was getting emotionally with him and then he told her this? "I, uh …" She stuttered.

"Look, I'll understand if you don't want a relationship with me because of the fact that our job is our lives and you're worried about the repercussions but you should know that even if we don't date or don't sleep together anymore, I'm going to be just as worried about you when you go pull a stunt like you did today as if we were involved. If on the other hand you don't want to date me because I'm this kind of bumbling idiot who tends to put his foot in his mouth whenever the occasion presents itself then it'll be fine." Matt paused. "I mean it won't be fine. But I'll get over it. Sort of."

He was gripping her hand so tight he was practically cutting off the blood supply but she was too dazed to even notice. "Are you asking me out?"

He tried to think of a way out of answering that question directly. "Erm yes, I guess. If you want me to be. Yes, yes I am."

Her face broke into a smile as she forgot all about her resolution to never date a co-worker again. She kissed him hard .

"We'll make this work." He promised and she believed him.

**A/N:- Awwh. Hopeless romantic me.**


End file.
